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	Human Trafficking: Trapped, Exploited, Abused by Human Rights Watch   November 23, 2014   Gulf Countries: Increase Migrant Worker Protection.   Labor ministers from Gulf and Asian countries meeting on November 26 and 27, 2014, should improve labor law protection, reform abusive immigration policies, and increase dialogue with trade unions and nongovernmental groups, 90 human rights organizations and unions said today.   Millions of contract workers from Asia and Africa, including an estimated 2.4 million domestic workers in the Gulf, are subject to a wide range of abuses, including unpaid wages, confiscation of passports, physical abuse, and forced labor.   “Whether it’s the scale of abuse of domestic workers hidden from public view or the shocking death toll among construction workers, the plight of migrants in the Gulf demands urgent and profound reform,” said Rothna Begum, Middle East women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This should include a thorough overhaul of the abusive kafala visa sponsorship system.”   The ministers will meet in the third round of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, an inter-regional forum on labor migration between Asian countries of origin and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of destination. Nongovernmental groups participated in the first two rounds but were not invited to this year’s gathering.   Labor ministers from the GCC states are to meet separately on November 23 to discuss a draft domestic workers contract and the proposed formation of a cross-GCC body to oversee migrant domestic work.   The kafala system, used to varying extents across the Gulf, restricts most workers from moving to a new job before their contracts end unless they obtain their employer’s consent, trapping many workers in abusive situations. Many migrant workers feel intense financial pressure not only to support their families at home but also to pay off huge debts incurred during recruitment.   Poorly monitored labor recruitment agencies, in both the migrants’ countries of origin and in the destination Gulf states, often overcharge migrant workers, deceive them about their working conditions, or fail to assist them if they encounter workplace abuse.   In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, migrant workers cannot leave the country without obtaining their employer’s consent for an “exit permit” from the authorities.   Some employers have refused to pay wages, return passports, or provide permission for “exit permits” in order to exact work from workers involuntarily.   A November analysis by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), “Facilitating Exploitation,” highlighted how gaps in national labor laws in GCC countries either partially or completely exclude domestic workers.   An October Human Rights Watch report, “I Already Bought You,” and an April Amnesty International report, “My Sleep is My Break,” found common patterns of abuse against domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar respectively, including unpaid wages, no rest periods, excessive workloads, food deprivation, and confinement in the workplace.   In several cases, domestic workers reported physical or sexual abuse and had been in situations of forced labor, including trafficking.   “The proposals made by GCC countries fall far short of the changes needed to protect domestic workers’ rights, safety, and dignity,” said Elizabeth Tang, general secretary of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF).   “GCC countries should join the growing number of countries worldwide that are extending full protection of their labor laws to domestic workers, including a minimum wage, a weekly rest day, the right to organize, and social benefits.”   http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/23/gulf-countries-increase-migrant-worker-protection   November 2014   Human Trafficking: Trapped, Exploited, Abused, by Janet Walsh.   Sex trafficking gets a lot of attention, as it should. It’s a horrific crime. But trafficking in forced labor is also a grave abuse that has even more victims.   In 2012, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that worldwide there were 14.2 million victims of forced labor compared with 4.5 million victims of forced sexual exploitation. Migrant domestic workers, for example, are at high risk of being trafficked into forced labor, but their stories rarely make the headlines.   Some governments have a blind spot when it comes to trafficking into forced labor. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one example.   The UAE considers forced labor a crime, but its anti-trafficking efforts, including shelters and public awareness campaigns, focus far more on sex trafficking than on trafficking into forced labor. In fact, the country’s main agency dealing with trafficking said in its 2013-14 that “the UAE — with expatriates making up about 85 percent of its population — believes that labor issues should not be linked to human trafficking, and should be treated separately.”   With an estimated 7.3 million migrant workers in the country, the UAE should have immigration policies and labor laws that protect foreign workers’ rights and reduce the risk of trafficking. Instead, they have a visa sponsorship system that fosters conditions for trafficking into forced labor. And while the labor law covers some migrant workers, it explicitly excludes domestic workers.   The UAE’s visa sponsorship system, known as kafala, ties domestic workers to individual employers. They can’t move to a new job before the end of their contract without the employer’s consent. This system — together with deceptive recruitment practices, the common employer practice of confiscating workers’ passports and exploitative working conditions — create a “perfect storm” for trafficking.   My colleague and I interviewed 99 domestic workers in the UAE, including some who were trafficked, for a new Human Rights Watch report. The women reported a range of abuses. Recruiters made false promises. Employers often didn’t pay the women’s wages on time, and some didn’t pay at all. Many employers confiscated the women’s passports and confined them to the households where they worked. The women worked long hours with no rest, and some were deprived of food. Some employers inflicted psychological and physical abuse — including sexual abuse.   One example is Mabel (whose name is changed for her protection), who left an office job in the Philippines for what she believed would be more lucrative work in the United Arab Emirates. A labor recruitment agent in the Philippines duped Mabel with the promise of an office job in Dubai with good pay.   But when she arrived in the UAE, there was no office job. Instead, the agent in the UAE made her work as a nanny and housecleaner for a family with three children. Mabel said her employers took her passport and locked her in their home. She worked up to 20 hours each day with no rest periods, or even one day off, for 10 months. Her employers delayed paying her wages for three months at a time. After they started beating her, she pretended to take out the garbage one day and then ran.   At the same time as the UAE is falling short on addressing trafficking and forced labor concerns at home, it is getting more involved at the global level. In 2014, the country was elected to the International Labor Organization’s Governing Body, and is a donor to a UN anti-trafficking initiative.   If the UAE wants to be a major player on labor and trafficking at the global level, it needs to put its own house in order. It can start by ratifying key global treaties, including the 2014 protocol to the ILO forced labor convention of 1930, and the 2011 ILO Convention on Domestic Workers.   The UAE should reform its laws by doing away with its visa sponsorship system and adopting a law on domestic workers rights. It should expand its anti-trafficking programs beyond sex trafficking.   It is time to assist all victims of trafficking, not just those whose stories make the headlines. Visit the related web page
	New PEN Report demonstrates global chilling effect of Mass Surveillance by Suzanne Nossel PEN America   Fear of government surveillance is prompting writers worldwide—even those residing in countries that claim to uphold free expression—to self-censor their works, according to a new report by international literary association PEN American, leading to a "devastating impact" on the freedom of information.   The report, Global Chilling: The Impact of Mass Surveillance on International Writers (pdf), found that more than half of the 800 writers surveyed think that mass government surveillance has "significantly damaged U.S. credibility as a global champion of free expression for the long term."   Further, according to the survey, writers living in countries defined as "Free" by U.S.-based NGO watchdog Freedom House expressed an almost equal level of concern about surveillance as those living in countries defined as "Not Free" (75% and 80%, respectively), prompting notable levels of self-censorship.   "The levels of self-censorship reported by writers living in liberal democracies are astonishing, and demonstrate that mass surveillance programs conducted by democracies are chilling freedom of expression among writers," the report notes. According to the survey, 34 percent of writers living in liberal democracies admitted to self-censoring, compared with 61 percent of writers living in authoritarian countries, and 44 percent in semi-democratic countries.   "Writers are reluctant to speak about, write about, or conduct research on topics that they think may draw government scrutiny. This has a devastating impact on freedom of information as well: If writers avoid exploring topics for fear of possible retribution, the material available to readers—particularly those seeking to understand the most controversial and challenging issues facing the world today—may be greatly impoverished."   Survey respondents also voiced concern that surveillance by the U.S. government and "Five Eyes" partner countries (which include Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand) has damaged their reputation abroad and thus their ability to champion free expression and other human rights around the world.   When asked, "how have recent revelations about U.S. government surveillance programs affected the United States’ credibility on free expression issues around the world?" roughly 60 percent of writers in both Western Europe and the Five Eyes countries said that U.S. credibility "has been significantly damaged for the long term."   "The USA has fundamentally damaged the "Western" model of human and citizen’s rights," one respondent wrote, "turning large parts of the world’s population (including the U.S. population) into right-less objects of surveillance and secret intelligence operations."   The international survey follows a 2013 PEN report which found that in the months following NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden"s disclosures of widespread government surveillance, American writers had become "overwhelmingly worried" about government overreach and one in six had reported self-censoring as a result.   A June 2014 report by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch also found that journalists and lawyers were increasingly avoiding work on controversial topics over fear of government spying.   "Surveillance is insidious," said Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of PEN American Center. "While governments may intend these bulk collection programs to be used only to detect terrorist wrongdoing, people under surveillance change their behavior to avoid triggering scrutiny. Because the programs are so broad, they could affect billions of people whose sense of privacy and creative freedom is curtailed."   The survey, conducted by non-partisan research firm the FDR Group, comes in advance of a full report to be released this spring. PEN hopes these results will inform public and Congressional debates on the future of mass surveillance. The group is calling for "the right to be free of unwarranted surveillance" to be made a "cornerstone of U.S. surveillance policy and practice."   In addition, PEN American proposes a number of legislative reforms, including allowing provisions of the Patriot Act to expire and ending surveillance programs carried out under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and Executive Order 12333.   http://www.pen.org/press-release/2015/01/05/new-pen-report-demonstrates-global-chilling-effect-mass-surveillance http://www.hrw.org/reports/2014/07/28/liberty-monitor-all http://www.pen-international.org/newsitems/china-writers-and-publishers-arrested-in-a-new-wave-of-repression-2/   January 2015   European human rights body finds spying programs endanger lives, consume valuable anti-terrorist resources.   Mass surveillance programs threaten fundamental human rights and may do more harm than good in the anti-terrorism fight, the top human rights organization in Europe said in a report published Monday.   "Our freedom is built on what others do not know of our existences." Thus begins the report (pdf) by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), with a quote from Russian writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. The report found that the invasive and widespread government intelligence programs revealed in 2013 by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "endanger fundamental human rights" as guaranteed by the European convention on human rights, including privacy, freedom of expression, fair trial, and freedom of religion.   "These rights are cornerstones of democracy," PACE said. "Their infringement without adequate judicial control jeopardizes the rule of law."   Moreover, those programs consume valuable resources, while providing little in the way of security. PACE continues:   Mass surveillance does not appear to have contributed to the prevention of terrorist attacks, contrary to earlier assertions made by senior intelligence officials. Instead, resources that might prevent attacks are diverted to mass surveillance, leaving potentially dangerous persons free to act.   Intelligence agencies are also actively threatening internet security by systematically seeking out, using, or even creating "back doors" and other weaknesses online that could be exploited by cyber-criminals or repressive governments, the report states, adding:   "The consequences of mass surveillance tools such as those developed by the US and allied services falling into the hands of authoritarian regimes would be catastrophic."   The assembly''s legal committee called for:   The collection of personal data without consent only following "a court order granted on the basis of reasonable suspicion"; "Credible, effective protection" for whistle-blowers exposing unlawful surveillance; Better judicial and parliamentary control of intelligence services; An "intelligence codex" defining mutual obligations that secret services could opt into; An inquiry into member states’ use of mass surveillance using powers under the European Convention on Human Rights.   Another concern named in the report is the use of mass surveillance to justify the existence of "secret laws, secret courts and secret interpretations of such laws."   In April 2014, Snowden spoke to the assembly through a video link from Moscow, Russia, where he has been granted asylum since 2012. During that conference, he revealed to assembly members that the NSA had targeted non-governmental organizations and other civil groups for its surveillance sweeps, both inside and outside of the U.S.   "Before the ever-growing ''surveillance-industrial complex'' spins completely out of control, we must act, in order to subject surveillance to the rule of law," the report states. Otherwise, "nobody and nothing is safe from snooping by our own countries'' and even foreign intelligence services."   http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/News/News-View-EN.asp?newsid=5387&lang=2&cat=5 Visit the related web page
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